Another Installation...

Mild Weather Great for Platform Installations

This week I finally got the chance to move a platform located on an island in Little Egg Harbor. Earlier this year I mistakenly placed a new platform on private property (a small island off Brant Beach on Long Beach Island) which I thought was owned by US Fish and Wildlife Service. It was not occupied this year, but you can tell ospreys used the platform as a perch. When I performed a survey this summer, I saw one adult on the platform but no nesting material. 

Well, long story short, the owner of the property didn't want the platform on his property. He believed that it would only attract gulls. I asked if we could keep it up for another year to give ospreys another chance at nesting on it. He declined and asked that we take it down. Yesterday, two friends and volunteers helped me move this platform to its new home on an island that is owned by US Fish and Wildlife Service. The (Marshelder) island is located approximately 1.3 miles to the south off of North Beach Haven. 

We shot video of the installation to be used in the creation of a video tutorial to demonstrate how to properly install an osprey nesting platform. Some of it will also be used in a documentary that I will be filming over the next few years. The documentary will highlight the projects history with interviews with biologists and others who worked to restore the population of ospreys in New Jersey. It will also address the current threats (pollution from run-off, contaminants, and litter; disturbance, and climate change) to ospreys.

Volunteers Paul Petrone and Joe Bilotta stand next to a platform that was installed on an island off Brant Beach in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey.